Bad Blood

His ugly face contorted. Aliza realized he was smiling. “Where would you like this house? Europe? The Caribbean? An island of your very own?”

Evie pointed out the window. “Here. Next door.”

Aliza’s heart swelled. Nothing like having your pride and joy close.

The demon snorted. “Humans.”

“That’s not all.” Evie lifted her chin. “Inside the house, I want something special waiting for me. A man.”

Shock coursed through Aliza’s blood. “Evie child.”

She turned. “Don’t look so freaked out, Ma. I’m not a kid anymore. Being trapped in stone was like prison. I have needs. And I want to take care of them.”

The demon chortled. “Tall? Dark? Dumb? At least make it sporting.”

“I want the blue-eyed half-breed.”

“Half-breed what? Fae? Varcolai?”

“Seminole. The Mohawked one who came here with the comarré and the vampires.” Evie snatched a crystal orb from the nearest bookshelf and conjured a picture of the man, holding it out to the demon. “And I want him under some sort of spell so he can’t refuse me.”

He leaned as far as he could, studying the image, then snorted. “Spells are your language, witchling, not mine. If you can’t control him, that’s of no concern to me.”

“Witchling?” Evie moved to within inches of the aquarium’s edge. Her knuckles paled from squeezing the crystal sphere. “I know enough to contain you, demon, and enough to destroy you as well.”

His red eyes glowed. “You amuse me with your threats.”

“Build me the house, hell spawn.” Her shoulder jerked. She crossed her arms. “Then bring me the man.”

He shrugged. “As you wish.” And disappeared.

Doc shot up out of the bed, his heart racing, his body strung in the halfway state between man and beast. The sheets lay in damp shreds around him, the casualty of a varcolai’s night terror.

“You okay?”

He looked up, still trying to bring his breathing back to normal. A fully corporeal Fi sat on the dresser across from the bed. Her legs were curled beneath her, her eyes as round and worried as when she’d been stuck in the time loop, forced to repeat the night of her murder.

Murder. The word pulled a shudder through his body. He ignored the sudden urge to check his hands for blood. To wipe the imagined wetness of it from his muzzle. “Fine,” he whispered through a split upper lip and teeth too long for a human mouth.

“Is that why your claws are out and your eyes are all yellow?”

He concentrated for a moment, and the signs of his true leopard self melted into full-on human. “Just a bad dream. Sorry for chasing you out of bed.”

She shrugged. “Once you’ve been dead a few times, the self-preservation instinct kicks in automatically.” Her eyes narrowed to slits as her mouth thinned. “You’ve been having bad dreams a lot lately. Ever since you went through the smoke.”

He’d realized that a few days ago but hadn’t wanted to say it out loud. Walking through the witch’s spelled smoke might have given him the ability to shift into leopard form again, but he’d known there would be a price to pay. Anything that involved the witches did. “Naw, that smoke was cool. That movie we saw tonight really freaked me out.”

Her brows rose incredulously. “I’m a ghost, you’re a shape-shifter, you live with a cursed vampire, and a zombie movie freaked you out. Honey, I love you, but that’s a bold-faced lie. What gives?”

He dropped his head into his hands, rubbing the stubble of his shaved scalp. “I can’t stop thinking about Preacher. About that baby. That’s all.”

“Babies scare you, huh? Good to know.” She laughed, but it was soft and gentle and didn’t feel aimed at him so much as intended to soothe. Fi was good like that.

“No, it’s just… I don’t want to talk about it, okay?” A vampire child couldn’t bring anything good into this world. He stripped off the ruined top sheet and patted the space beside him. He needed the distraction of Fi’s affections to blank out the nightmare threatening the edges of his consciousness. “Come back to bed, sweetness.”

She scooted off the dresser but didn’t come any closer. Damn, she meant business. “Suit yourself, but you really need to tell Mal about what you saw. You know Preacher’s got hard feelings for him. Mal deserves to know about anything new going on in that crazy daywalker’s life.”

“I will. Promise. First good chance I get.” Which hadn’t happened yet, and with the way Mal’s moods went, might not happen for another year or so. Truth was, Doc didn’t think Mal knowing Preacher had fathered a kid was such a good idea. No one knowing was a better idea. Hell, Doc was sorry he knew.

“I’m serious.” Her eyes strayed from his face down his bare chest and lower. She flipped a length of chestnut hair over one shoulder as the tip of her tongue wet her lips. She reached the end of the bed. “You’re not playing fair.”

He stretched, showing off the muscles in his arms and chest. He ached for her. For the unconditional way she gave herself to him. It was the greatest luxury in his life. One he’d kill to protect. “I never play fair. That’s part of my charm.”

She crossed her arms and shook her head. “Charm isn’t going to protect you if Mal finds out you’re keeping a secret like this. You need to tell him.”